How is it already episode four? This season is going way too fast. As in previous weeks, I will be ranking the Succession players from hot to cold, based on their standing. Spoilers, obviously…

Colder than a lobster lunch on the beach:

 

Shiv’s powerless power suit:

It’s incredible to watch Shiv move from insider to outsider, even though there’s been no material change in her position or title. Logan set her up to fail by informing her she is in charge, without informing the actual people in charge that Shiv will be working there too, and so she bops around like an office busybody who sends all-company emails about cleaning out the microwave.

Tom’s brochure of white collar prisons:

Tom is talking toilet wine– he is beyond out of sorts, with the pressure of maybe actually going to prison and his flatlining marriage putting pressure on him. Even at work, where he is supposed to have all this power, he is meaningless (and kind of embarrassing). That’s why he takes refuge in Greg, trying to help him game a goal he has already achieved.

Telling Greg he would castrate and marry him was weird and desperate and melancholy and confusing, the jumble of feelings that Shiv doesn’t have time for and Tom can’t communicate in a healthy way.

Little Lord F-ckleroy:

Kendall warmed up this episode and seemed more focused now that he’s taken a break from the social shenanigans. But as always, he gets in his own way, completely misreading the Josh situation. Josh obviously had Stewy on standby. Bringing down his father and retaining control seemed like a sure thing and now it’s a longshot. His options are dwindling and at this point, with a board vote days away, he absolutely must partner with Logan or lose. (If Jay-Z doesn’t show up to Ken’s 40th, he will be crushed.)

 

A note on the Roys and lobster:

This is the third time I’ve clocked that the Roys don’t really partake in lobster. It was once mentioned that Logan beat Roman with a slipper for ordering lobster at a group dinner (it was rude because someone else was paying). Then, for a meeting at the summer palace, the staff prepared giant seafood platters, which Logan had thrown out before they are touched. Now, we see Josh had lobster prepared for them and neither Logan nor Kendall touch it.

Hotter than sunstroke:

Adrien Brody and his four sweaters (plus a scarf):

I’ll be honest: introducing a famous person as a character on an established TV show can be jarring because we all know who Adrien is. Watching him in this episode, he’s a better actor than I’ve given him credit for in the past few years. (Should he have Jared Leto’s career? Let’s discuss again at a later time.) From the second he was casually reading  book, I knew he was there to f-ck with the Roys. He’s worried about his $350 million, of course, but he’s also a messy b-tch who lives for drama.

Adrien (Josh) did a stress test on the Roys, seeing how far he could push the old man with his ridiculous “shortcut that takes longer” hike. And maybe it was to get him back for the thinly veiled anti-Semitic digs, or maybe he was hoping for a meltdown. Either way, he saw the dynamic between them and didn’t trust it.

“Everything, everywhere, is always moving, forever.”

It’s almost philosophical, isn’t it? The idea that none of this matters and all of it matters and only Logan – much older and more battle worn than his kids – sees that.

 

Logan is so good at convincing his kids that he loves them (and, by extension, believes they can run the company) that I actually believed his little monologue at lunch, when he praises Ken. The power that man has. He’s dangling a carrot bigger than the one needed for Iverson’s new bunny.

He’s in the “hot” section because even though he is being pounded from all sides, he knows that everyone has their knives out. He isn’t going into situations thinking it will be easy for him. He’s in the fight. Unlike Kendall, who goes into every situation thinking he’s already won, Logan earns his victories every single time. Also, having to sit down on a hike? I’ve never related to this man more.

Connor’s resume:

Connor is going to try something different and “work” at a “job.” Connor knows about the bad things but he will never use them against anyone because he’s too passive and also he doesn’t want to fumble his bag. Out of all the Roy children, I think Connor has the most interesting backstory. His mother was not well. Logan didn’t abandon Connor but he did neglect him, which is a different kind of pain. He was brought to the castle in the UK and included in everything but lacked connection, especially as the older half-brother of the terrible trio. But when the younger Roys talk about their childhood, especially Roman, it’s Connor who comes up often (he confirmed Roman liked being locked in a cage and asked to go to military school, and he was the “happy memory anecdote” that Roman used on a journalist). He sees things. And even he can sense Shiv has no real power.

Greg’s game plan:

Greg asking Logan what he should ask for? Classic Greg. But it turns out that out of everyone, he is the only who has wrangled something tangible out of this clusterf-ck and it’s something that he really wants (a rum and coke and a job in parks)! That’s what makes Tom’s meltdown even sadder, that he sees Greg’s simple happiness.

 

The unhoused man from New Orleans:

Roman was the B-plot this episode and it involved tracking down an unhoused man he and his merry band of Ivy League psychopaths bullied into getting Kendall’s initials tattooed on his forehead at a bachelor party ten years ago. Roman wants to use it against Ken as public payback, which is interesting because he refused to participate in Shiv’s public letter, which is WAY less damaging than this information. Roman is reading the situation wrong (he’s too immature and spoiled to grasp how awful it is) and it seems now that he wasn’t actually against burying his brother publicly, he just didn’t want Shiv to be the one holding the shovel. He didn’t want to use her voice to do it. Ultimately, even though he doesn’t see that this incident makes him look just as bad (like, f-cking awful), he gives in to Gerri’s advice.

Best case scenario is that man gets his million dollars and the pictures are buried forever.

Gerri cucking Roman:

Gerri blowing off Roman for a date (“With who? Montgomery Clift?”) is part of the dance, right? As she sets up more boundaries between them, you know this kind of game playing is making Roman’s perverted little heart soar.